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Medicine

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Oct 30, 2023

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1 Community Paramedicine Healthcare is an important social aspect that enhances people's well-being. Community paramedicine is a new field in medicine in which EMTs and Paramedics play enhanced responsibilities in an attempt to connect underutilized services to underserved communities. This field of healthcare enables the paramedics and the emergency health technicians (EMTs) to effectively work together to get resources to communities that are underutilized and need support and health resources (Iezzoni et al., 2016). Paramedics provide emergency medical support to critical and patients considered to have the emergent condition by health facilities. Community paramedicine serves as a connection between primary care and emergency care, addressing the needs of patients with low acuity but no access to primary care, older patients with limited mobility, and people of rural/remote areas. While out-of-hospital emergency care is fundamental to paramedic practice, paramedics' special mix of qualifications and field expertise can also extend to a variety of neighborhood or home-based healthcare facilities. However, these individuals are neither doctors nor nurses but provide their services alongside the doctors. Community Paramedicine entails health care that the paramedics provide except the obvious and custom emergency responses such as transport of the physicians. This paper seeks to explain the benefits of community paramedicine, as well as examine the populations that are likely to benefit from this program. It will also evaluate the barriers to implementation and the sustainability of such programs. Community Paramedicine’s essence to rural community health

2 Although the local communities determine where it is best to apply these community paramedicine programs. Notably, rural areas lack some health care, and this program acts as a gap bridging service to the problem ( Bennett et al., 2018) . In that regard, services provided by community Paramedicine can assist societies to: ● Improve the individual’s quality of life ● It makes other health care providers feel a decline in the burden ● Enhance MIH since paramedics relate with other medical providers ● Reduce unnecessary transportation ● It helps to improve access to primary health care in the community ( O’Meara et al., 2015) Population cohorts whose wellbeing is likely to improve from community Paramedicine programs The Community Paramedicine program is critical to several population groups, especially in health-wise underserved areas. The individuals who express limited movements and persons who might benefit from enhanced healthcare coordination are likely to improve their well-being from these programs. These groups are and not limited to: Individuals with chronic ailments This group shared feature is that they are mainly older adults who tend to develop chronic diseases due to old age complications. Primary healthcare can get provided to them and address health management complexities. Community Paramedicine programs for this group were effective since 62% of the patients indicated a decline in blood pressure while 78% reported blood sugar level decrement ( O'Meara et al., 2015) .

3 Recently discharged persons When a person gets discharged from hospitals, they require maximum care and health care to prevent readmission. Readmission rates can decline with community paramedics who can direct patients and ensure strict adherence to the medical prescriptions ( Glenn et al., 2018) . Rural Community Paramedicine program establishment barriers Statutory barriers - Some legislation allows paramedics to provide emergency service as first aid only and thus limiting their scope. These regulations may make it challenging to establish a community Paramedicine program effectively, their scope of practice is limited and they cannot perform certain procedures without supervision from other healthcare workers. Service duplication by medical staff - Some of the duties of the community Paramedicine programs tend to overlap those provided by other health workers ( Choi et al., 2016) . To effectively manage the health gaps, each faction should define succinctly what their paramedicine program entails. Community paramedics can offer standard primary care treatment to patients by home visits. Routine vaccines, wound management, and checkups for people with hypertension, High blood pressure, diabetes, or other chronic illnesses are examples of these services. An example of service duplication is when a community paramedic from a program assigned to take care of routine vaccines, takes over the duties of community paramedics from a different program. It is very important that each paramedic from different programs understand their responsibilities to effectively manage the distribution of services and resources.

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4 Implementation and evaluation Community Paramedicine training Some requirements differ in every state depending on the scope and paramedic practice regulations. In that regard, there is no homogeneity in policies affecting the practice but the program can get evaluated on its performance through data collection or survey. There are no state-by-state rules governing community paramedicine. Many state governments or emergency medical service (EMS) providers often have their own educational standards in place. As a result, curriculum planners and policy makers will be able to adjust the current curricula to their program's needs. Sustainability Community Paramedicine programs can get sustained through robust strategies such as: ● Prompting cost-sharing methods with partners ● Financial support from Nonprofits and related foundations ● Provision of grants from the government Conclusion Community Paramedicine is an upcoming emergency response paradigm determined to help paramedics improve rural healthcare, reduce the burden to other medical professionals and improve mobility in the community for specified population groups such as the chronically ill. The programs have barriers to implementation, such as service overlapping. Besides, these programs are vividly implementable and sustainable for the overall good of the community.

5 References Bennett, K. J., Yuen, M. W., & Merrell, M. A. (2018). Community Paramedicine Applied in a Rural Community. The Journal of rural health : official journal of the American Rural Health Association and the National Rural Health Care Association, 34 Suppl 1, s39–s47. https://doi.org/10.1111/jrh.12233 Choi, B. Y., Blumberg, C., & Williams, K. (2016). Mobile Integrated Health Care and Community Paramedicine: An Emerging Emergency Medical Services Concept. Annals of emergency medicine, 67(3), 361–366. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annemergmed.2015.06.005 Glenn, M., Zoph, O., Weidenaar, K., Barraza, L., Greco, W., Jenkins, K., Paode, P., & Fisher, J. (2018). State Regulation of Community Paramedicine Programs: A National Analysis. Prehospital emergency care : official journal of the National Association of EMS Physicians and the National Association of State EMS Directors, 22(2), 244–251. https://doi.org/10.1080/10903127.2017.1371260 Iezzoni, L. I., Dorner, S. C., & Ajayi, T. (2016). Community Paramedicine--Addressing Questions as Programs Expand. The New England journal of medicine, 374(12), 1107– 1109. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp1516100 O’Meara, P., Ruest, M., & Martin, A. (2015). Integrating a Community Paramedicine program with local health, aged care and social services: An observational ethnographic study. Australasian Journal of Paramedicine, 12(5). https://doi.org/10.33151/ajp.12.5.238

6 O'Meara, P., Stirling, C., Ruest, M., & Martin, A. (2016). Community paramedicine model of care: an observational, ethnographic case study. BMC health services research, 16, 39. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-016-1282-0 Training for Community Paramedicine Programs - RHIhub Toolkit. (2020). Rural Health Information Hub. https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/toolkits/community-paramedicine/4/training

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